Uganda Rwenzori Bugoye Natural 2023

Ugandan Natural Process Coffee | Bugoye Coffee Community

The Bugoye community resides north of Kasese, living and farming throughout altitudes ranging from 1,300-1,900masl in western Uganda. The smallholders grow coffee as their main cash crop. Harvesting and selling cherries pays for essentials like sending children to school. The coffee trees that populate these smallholder garden plots are mostly SL28 and SL14 cultivars that were originally developed in Kenya.

With attentive processing at newly established stations around the region, natural Uganda coffee lots like this can deliver an excellent, high-scoring cup profile. Flavors of this coffee include berry, brown sugar, dried plum, and black tea with a medium body and mild acidity that speaks to the potential of the local terroir.

Coffee from the Rwenzori Mountains

The Rwenzori mountain range (aka - Mountains of the Moon), in Western Uganda is an up-and-coming region offering consistently high-quality Ugandan green coffee beans. Genuine Origin’s sourcing partner on the ground here established receiving stations throughout the mountain range. The receiving stations are generally closer to farming areas, making it easier for farmers to deliver ripe red cherries. From the receiving stations, cherries are transported to a centralized wet mill, where processing is carried out under careful supervision and quality control.

Uganda is a landlocked country in Africa. That means green coffee must first travel through Kenya to reach the Mombasa port before it can be exported internationally. European countries like Italy and Germany are the top importers of Uganda green coffee, but as more effort is put into Arabica coffee production through government incentives, the market reach of Uganda specialty coffee is also widening.

Natural Process Coffee in Uganda

The Rwenzoris are known for producing naturals, but much of Uganda’s Arabica green coffee used to be made up of “drugar” (dried Ugandan Arabica) grade beans that were inconsistent and often of poor quality. As a result, farmers struggled to earn much cash from these harvests. Now, new receiving stations enable great coffee to be delivered and processed into high-quality lots of natural and washed Uganda green coffee, including experimental micro-lots. This coffee was collected via the receiving stations, where farmers are paid double what they’re used to getting for “drugars” (dried Ugandan Arabica).

In the natural process, only the ripest coffee cherries are harvested. The entire procedure requires thorough planning because drying naturals is a slow process that can take up to four weeks. Coffee cherries are dried whole, without removing any of the fruit, on raised beds set out in the sun. During this stage, the coffee is turned regularly to increase airflow, support even drying, and prevent spoilage. After the cherries have been dried, they rest in conditioning bins and are only hulled as the shipment time draws near.

Uganda Green Coffee

While Ethiopia may be Africa’s top coffee producer, Uganda is the continent’s top exporter of the valuable commodity. And yet they’re nowhere near their maximum potential. Improvements in farming and processing are helping the region surge past socio-economic hurdles that have historically held this coffee origin back. Upgrades in quality and new washing stations are also substantially impacting the lives of the smallholder farmers who produce the coffee. Read more in our Uganda Green Coffee Origin Report.